The Head & Neck and SKIN working group is currently composed by a core group of 41 members. The total number of active members is progressively increasing confirming the interest of the brachytherapy community in this field.

During 2021, 2 meetings were planned (April and November), both in virtual way due to the pandemic situation.

WG board is composed as follows

• HNS GEC-ESTRO WG Chair – Luca Tagliaferri
• HNS GEC-ESTRO WG Secretaries – Angeles Rovirosa and Agata Rembielak

 

• Eye Task Force leader - Benjamín Guix Melcior
• Skin Task Force leader – Agata Rembielak
• Head and Neck Task Force leader – Jose Luis Guinot

 

The activities of the working group are arranged in 3 main fields: research (Clinical & Translational), clinical practice and education.

 

COBRA Project

The principal research project of the WG is COBRA (COnsortium for BRachytherapy data Analysis).  The COBRA consortium is an international research network for interdisciplinary standardized data collection in the field of Head & Neck, Skin and Eye interventional radiotherapy, using a specific web-based platform, which is useful for retrospective studies and prospective research trials. 19 international institutions currently join the consortium and work with sharing their clinical data. In the frame of the COBRA system, the working group is currently focusing its interest on the collection of data for skin cancer especially for the treatment of the peri-orifices lesions and for multicentric predictive model validations on eye maculopathy and visus loss.

 

RESEARCH projects

The group is working on several research projects, in particular

• the role of bolus in the skin brachytherapy practice
• analysis of minimum dataset reporting in the skin brachytherapy practice
• trial on nasal vestibule cancer (BRAVO)
• the role of 3D-printer based moulds for individualised brachytherapy
• Evaluation of Clinical and Dermoscopic Patterns during Brachytherapy

 

GUIDELINES

The group is working on an update of Head and Neck GEC-ESTRO guidelines, published in 2017, and skin GEC-ESTRO guidelines, published in 2018. Moreover, the opportunity to publish Eye GEC-ESTRO guidelines is under discussion.

 

EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

The WG is involved in several educational activities, in particular:

• ESTRO Course on Multidisciplinary Management of Non-Melanoma Skin cancer
• Head and Neck Multidisciplinary ESTRO endorsed Course

Furthermore, a special Project dedicated to Post-Grad Residents is supported by the working group. In order to facilitate the educational activities in Head and Neck Interventional Radiation Therapy, especially for young physicians, the WG support the Residents Exchange among the WG member Institutions.